This clinic will demonstrate and explore warm-up & rehearsal strategies that develop transferable ensemble skills. This approach leads to rehearsal processes whereby student musicians take more responsibility for the fundamentals of good ensemble performance, thus freeing the conductor to concentrate on more expressive music-making. The primary focus will be exploring rehearsal and conducting strategies that develop guided listening skills of the players to hear and address rehearsal issues.
Rob McWilliams
- Biographical Information
Prof. Rob McWilliams was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia. A United States resident from 1991 to 2014, he holds a Ph. D. in Music Education from the University of Minnesota, a Master's in Instrumental Conducting from Florida State University, and a Bachelor's in Music Education from the University of Melbourne. Prior to the USA, he taught K-12 instrumental music in Melbourne, and served on the faculty of the University of Melbourne where he taught courses in brass, jazz, and instrumental pedagogy and conducted the Wind Symphony, Brass Choir, and Jazz Big Band. From 1996 to 2014 he served as Professor of Music and Director of Bands and Instrumental Music Education at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and served as Head of Department from 2011.
Prof. McWilliams has worked with ensembles at national, state, and regional levels and served as guest conductor and clinician in all states of Australia. Internationally, he has conducted and presented at major conferences in Japan, Hong Kong, the UK, Singapore, Europe, China, and many states of the USA. He has conducted the Australian Wind Orchestra at the Japan Band Clinic and WASBE conferences in Manchester, England and Hamamatsu, Japan. He was a conductor for the Tutti International Festival in Beijing, China in 2011 & 2013 and is its artistic director for 2019.
Prof. McWilliams has been an invited clinician for the Singapore Ministry of Education, the Australian Band & Orchestra Directors’ Association, and the Australian Society of Music Educators. In the USA he has presented at the Music Educators National Conference, the Southeastern Music Education Symposium, and the Wisconsin Music Educators Association. He has been published in the Journal of Band Research, Teaching Music Through Performance in Band and as a composer/arranger with Alfred's Music. In early 2015 he relocated to Brisbane, and currently works for Yamaha Music Australia as an Educational Outreach Clinician.